








0° .^^>>o ^"^ -•-•- 





















'^ 




























AN 






ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



CITIZENS OF WORCESTER 



FOURTH OFJULY, 1833. 



BY EDWARD E V E R E T T, 17^^ -l^feS-, 




*e-"r " >) 



BOSTON: 

JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM, 

1833. 



^33 



WoKCESTER, July 4th, 1833. 
Hon. E. Everett, 

Dear Sir, — We are directed by the Committee of Arrangements to re- 
quest that you will favor them with a copy of your Address, delivered this 
day, for the purpose of having it published. 

It would be useless for us, to express how much we have been gratified 
this day. The profound attention, with which the crowded audience 
listened, must prove to you, more than words of ours could do, the deep 
interest, which was felt in your address. 

We conclude by offering you, in behalf of your fellow-citizens of this 
town, their sincere thanks for the honor you have done them, — and remain 

Yours, respectfully, 

(Signed) F. W. PAINE, ^ 

LEVI A. DOWLEY, [ c. j n 

JUBAL HARRINGTON, \Suh- Committee. 
WILLIAM LINCOLN, J 



Charlestown, Mass. 14th July, 1833. 
Gentlemen, 

I duly received your favor of the 4th instant, requesting a copy of my 
Address, delivered at Worcester on that day, for the purpose of having it 
published. 

Allow me to thank you for the obliging terms, in which you speak of it. 
I have endeavored to comply with your request, with as little delay as 
possible. Seasonably as your kind invitation was given me, last spring, a 
series of engagements compelled me to postpone my preparation, till a few 
days previous to the fourth. From the brief notes then thrown together, 
I have written off my address substantially as spoken; — as nearly so, as is 
possible under the circumstances of the case. I have taken the liberty to 
add a few ideas, belonging to the plan which I had sketched out, but omitted 
for the sake of brevity. 

I am, Gentlemen, very respectfully, 
Your obedient servant, 

(Signed) EDWARD EVERETT. 

Messrs. 

F. W. Paine, ^ 

Levi A. Dowlev, lei/-' 
JuBAL Harrington, r''*-^<'^™»"««- 
William Lincoln. 



ADDRESS. 



Fellow-Citizens, 

I HAVE accepted, with great cheerfulness, the invi- 
tation, with which you have honored me, to address 
you on this occasion. The citizens of Worcester did 
not wait to receive a second call, before they hastened 
to the relief of the citizens of Middlesex, in the times 
that tried men's souls. I should feel myself degen- 
erate and unworthy, could I hesitate to come, and, in 
my humble measure, assist you in commemorating 
those exploits, which your fathers so promptly and so 
nobly aided our fathers in achieving. 

Apprised by your committee, that the invitation, 
which has brought me hither, was given on behalf of 
the citizens of Worcester, without distinction of 
party, — I can truly say, that it is, also, in this respect, 
most congenial to my feelings. I have several times 
had occasion to address my fellow-citizens on the 
fourth of July ; and sometimes at periods, when the 
party excitement, — now so happily, in a great meas- 
ure, allayed, — has been at its height ; and when cus- 
tom and public sentiment would have borne me out, 
in seizing the opportunity of inculcating the political 



views of those, on whose behalf I spoke. But of no 
such opportunity have I ever availed myself. I have 
never failed, as far as it was in my power, to lead the 
minds of those, whom I have had the honor to ad- 
dress, to those common topics of grateful recollection, 
which unite the patriotic feelings of every American. 
It has not been my fault, if ever, on this auspicious 
national anniversary, a single individual has forgotten, 
that he was a brother of one great family, while he 
has recollected, that he was a member of a party. 

In fact, fellow-citizens, I deem it one of the hap- 
piest effects of the celebration of this anniversary, 
that, when undertaken in the spirit, which has ani- 
mated you on this occasion, it has a natural tendency 
to soften the harshness of party, which I cannot but 
regard, as the great bane of our prosperity. It was 
pronounced, by the Father of his Country, in his vale- 
dictory counsels to the People of the United States, 
" the worst enemy of popular governments ;" and the 
experience of almost every administration, from his 
own down, has confirmed the truth of the remark. 
The spirit of party unquestionably has its source in 
some of the native passions of the heart ; and free 
governments naturally furnish more of its aliment, 
than ihose, under which the liberty of speech and of 
the press is restrained by the strong arm of power. 
But so naturally does party run into extremes, — so 
unjust, cruel, and remorseless is it, in its excess, — so 
ruthless in the war, which it wages against private 
character, — so unscrupulous, in the choice of means 
for the attainment of selfish ends, — so sure is it, 
eventually, to dig the grave of those free institutions, 



of which it pretends to be the necessary accompani- 
ment, — so inevitably does it end in military despot- 
ism and unmitigated tyranny, that I do not know how 
the voice and influence of a good man could, with 
more propriety, be exerted, than in the effort to as- 
suage its violence. 

We must be strengthened in this conclusion, when 
we consider, that party controversy is constantly 
showing itself as unreasonable and absurd, as it is un- 
amiable and pernicious. If we needed illustrations 
of the truth of this remark, we should not be obliged 
to go far to find them. In the unexpected turns that 
continually occur in affairs, events arise, which put to 
shame the selfish adherence of resolute champions to 
their party names. No election of Chief Magistrate 
has ever been more strenuously contested, than that 
which agitated the country the last year ; and I do 
not know, that party spirit, in our time at least, has 
ever run higher, or the party press been more viru- 
lent, on both sides. And what has followed ? The 
election was scarcely decided ; the President, thus 
chosen, had not entered upon the second term of his 
office, before the state of things was so entirely 
changed, as to produce, in reference to the most im- 
portant question, which has engaged the attention of 
the country since the adoption of the Constitution, a 
concert of opinion among those, who, two months be- 
fore, had stood in hostile array against each other. 
The measures, adopted by the President for the pres- 
ervation of the Union, met with the most cordial sup- 
port, in Congress and out of it, from those who had 
most strenuously opposed his election ; and he, in his 






turn, depended upon that support, not only as auxili- 
ary, but as indispensable, to his administration, in this 
great crisis. And what do we now behold ? The 
President of the United States, traversing New-Eng- 
land, under demonstrations of public respect, as cor- 
dial and as united, as he would receive in Pennsylva- 
nia or Tennessee ; and the great head of his oppo- 
nents in this part of the country, the illustrious 
champion of the Constitution in the Senate of the 
United States, welcomed, with equal cordiality and 
equal unanimity, by men of all names and parties, in 
the distant West. 

And what is the cause of this wonderful and auspi- 
cious change ; — auspicious, however transitory its du- 
ration may unfortunately prove ? That cause is to be 
sought in a principle so vital, that it is almost worth 
the peril, to which the country's best interests have 
been exposed, to see its existence and power made 
manifest and demonstrated. This principle is, that 
the union of the states, — which has been in danger, 
— must, at all hazards, be preserved ; that union, 
which, in the same parting language of Washington, 
which I have already cited, " is the main pillar in the 
edifice of our real independence, the support of our 
tranquillity at home, our peace abroad, our safety, our 
prosperity ; of that very liberty which we so highly 
prize." Men have forgotten their little feuds, in the 
perils of the Constitution. The afflicted voice of the 
country, in its hour of danger, has charmed down, 
with a sweet persuasion, the angry passions of the 
day ; and men have felt that they had no heart, to 
ask themselves the question. Whether their party 



■^'■'i«t 



were triumphant or jDrostrate? when the infinitely 
more momentous question was pressing upon them, 
Whether the Union was to be preserved or destroyed ? 

In speaking, however, of the preservation of the 
Union, as the great and prevailing principle in our po- 
litical system, I would not have it understood, that I 
suppose this portion of the country to be more inter- 
ested in it, than any other. The intimation, which 
is sometimes made, and the belief, which, in some 
quarters, is avowed, that the Northern States have a 
peculiar and a selfish interest, in the preservation of 
the Union ; — that they derive advantages from it, at 
the uncompensated expense of other portions ; — I 
take to be one of the grossest delusions ever propa- 
gated by men, deceived themselves, or willing to de- 
ceive others. I know, indeed, that the dissolution of 
the Union would be the source of incalculable injury 
to every part of it ; as it would, in great likelihood, 
lead to border and civil war, and eventually to mili- 
tary despotism. But not to us would the bitter chal- 
ice be first presented. This portion of the Union,— 
erroneously supposed to have a peculiar interest in its 
preservation, — would be sure to suffer, no doubt, but 
it would also be among the last to suffer, from that 
deplorable event ; while that portion, which is con- 
stantly shaking over us the menace of separation, 
would be swept with the besom of destruction, from 
that moment an offended Providence should permit 
that purpose to reach its ill-starred maturity. 

Far distant be all these inauspicious calculations. 
It is the natural tendency of celebrating the Fourth 
of July, to strengthen the sentiment of attachment tq 
2 



10 

the Union. It carries us back to other days of yet 
greater peril to our beloved country, when a still 
stronger bond of feeling and action united the hearts 
of her children. It recalls to us the sacrifices of 
those, who deserted all the walks of private industry 
and abandoned the prospects of opening life, to engage 
in the service of their country. It reminds us of the 
fortitude of those, who took upon themselves the per- 
ilous responsibility of leading the public counsels, in 
the paths of revolution ; in the sure alternative of that 
success, which was all but desperate, and that scaffold 
already menaced as their predestined fate, if they 
failed. It calls up, as it were, from the beds of glory 
and peace where they lie, — from the heights of 
Charlestown to the southern plains, — the vast and 
venerable congregation of those, who bled in the sa- 
cred cause. They gather in saddened majesty around 
us, and adjure us, by their returning agonies and re- 
opening wounds, not to permit our feuds and dissen- 
sions to destroy the value of that birthright, which 
they purchased with their precious lives. 

There seems to me a peculiar interest attached to 
the present anniversary celebration. It is just a half 
century, since the close of the revolutionary war. It 
is the jubilee of the restoration of peace, between 
the United States and Great-Britain. It has been 
sometimes objected to these anniversary celebrations, 
and to the natural tendency of the train of remark, 
in the addresses which they call forth, that they tend 
to keep up a hostile feeling toward the country from 
which we are descended, and with which we are at 
peace. Without denying that this celebration may, 



11 

like all other human things, have been abused in inju- 
dicious hands, for such a purpose, I cannot, neverthe- 
less, admit, that, either as philanthropists or citizens 
of the world, we are required to renounce any of the 
sources of an honest national pride. A revolution 
like ours is a most momentous event in human affairs. 
History does not furnish its parallel. Characters 
like those of our fathers, — services, sacrifices, and 
sufferings like theirs, form a sacred legacy, transmitted 
to our veneration, to be cherished, to be preserved 
unimpaired, and to be handed down to after ages. 
Could we consent, on any occasion, to deprive them 
of their just meed of praise, we should prove our^ 
selves degenerate children ; and we should be guilty, 
as a People, of a sort of public and collective self- 
denial, unheard of among nations, whose annals con* 
tain any thing, of which their citizens have reason to 
be proud. Our brethren in Great-Britain teach us no 
such lesson. In the zeal, with which they nourish 
the boast of a brave ancestry by the proud recollec- 
tions of their history, they have, — so to speak, — 
consecrated their gallant and accomplished neighbors, 
the French, — (from whom they, also, are originally, in 
part, descended,) — as a sort of natural enemy, an 
object of hereditary hostile feeling, in peace and in 
war. That it could be thought ungenerous or un- 
christian to commemorate the exploits of the Wel- 
lingtons, the Nelsons, or the Marlboroughs, I believe 
is an idea, that never entered into the head of an 
English statesman or patriot. 

But, at the same time, I admit it to be not so much 
the duty, as the privilege, of an American citizen, to 



12 

acquit this obligation to the memory of his fathers, 
with discretion and generosity. It is true, that the 
greatest incident of our history,-^that which lies at 
the foundation of our most important and most cher- 
ished national traditions, — is the revolutionary war. 
But it is not the less true, that there are many ties, 
which ought to bind our feelings to the land of our 
fathers. It is characteristic of a magnanimous people 
to do justice to the merits of every other nation ; es- 
pecially of a nation with whom we have been at va- 
riance and are now in amity ; and most especially of 
a nation of common blood. Where are the graves of 
our fathers ? In England. The school of the free 
principles, in which, as the last grcvat lesson, the doc- 
trine of our independence was learned, where did it 
subsist ? In the hereditary love of liberty of the 
Anglo-Saxon race. The great names, which, — -before 
America began to exist for civilization and humanity, 
— immortalized the language which we speak, and 
■made our mothertongue a heart-stirring dialect, which 
a man is proud to take on his lips, whithersoever, on 
the face of the earth, he may wander, are English* 
If it be, in the language of Cowper, 

praise enough 
To fill the ambition of a private man, 
That Chatham's language is his mother-tongue, 
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own, 

let it not be beneath the pride nor beyond the grati- 
tude of an American to remember, that Wolfe fell on 
the soil of this country, with some of the best and 
bravest of New-England by his side ; and that it was 
among the last of the thrilling exclamations, with 



13 

which Chatham shook the House of Lords : — "Were 
I an American, as I am an Englishman, I never would 
lay down my arms ; never, never, never !" 

There were, indeed, great and glorious achieve- 
ments in America, before the revolution, in which the 
colonies and the mother country were intimately and 
honorably associated. There lived brave men before 
the Agamemnons of seventy-six; and, thanks to the 
recording pen of history, their names are not and 
never shall be forgotten. Nothing but the noon-tide 
splendor of the revolutionary period could have suf- 
ficed to cast into comparative forgetfulness, the 
heroes and the achievements of the Old French War, 
and of that which preceded it, in 1744. If we 
wished an effective admonition of the unreasonable- 
ness of permitting the events of the revolution, to en- 
gender a feeling of permanent hostility in our minds, 
toward the land of our fathers, we might find it in 
the fact, that the war of independence was preceded, 
by only twenty years, by that mighty conflict of the 
Seven Years' war, in which the best blood of England 
and the colonies was shed beneath their united ban- 
ners, displayed on the American soil, and in a cause, 
which all the colonies, and especially those of New- 
England, had greatly at heart. And this observation 
suggests the topic, to which fbeg leave to call your 
attention, for the residue of the hour. 

It will not be expected of me, on this happy occa- f 
^ion, — which seems more appropriately to be devoted | 
|to the effusion of kind and patriotic feeling, than to | 
|laboTed discussion, — to engage in a regular essay ; — 
' particularly as other urgent engagements have left 






14 

me but a very brief period of preparation, for my ap- 
pearance before you. I shall aim only, out of the 
vast storehouse of the revolutionary theme, to se- 
lect one or two topics, less frequently treated than 
some others, but not inappropriate to the day. 
Among these, I think we may safely place the civil 
and military education, which the country had received, 
in the earlier fortunes of the colonies; the great 
prceparatio libertatis, which had fitted out our fathers, 
to reap the harvest of independence on bloody fields, 
and to secure and establish it, hj those wise institu- 
tions, in which the only safe enjoyment of freedom 
resides. 

This subject, in its full extent, would be greatly 
too comprehensive for the present occasion, and the 
circumstances under which I have the honor to ad- 
dress you. I shall confine myself chiefly to the Seven 
Years' war, as connected with the War of the Revo- 
lution ; — a subject, which has not, perhaps, received 
all the attention which it merits. The influence on 
the revolutionary struggle of the long civil contest, 
which had been kept up with the Crown, and the 
effect of this contest in awakening the minds of men 
in the colonies, and forming them to the intelligent 
and skillful defence of their rights, have been often 
enough set forth. But the peculiar and extraordinary 
concurrence of facts, in the military, history of the 
colonies ; the manner in vt'hich the moving causes of 
the Revolution are interwoven with the great inci- 
dents of the previous wars ; deserve a particular de- 
velopment. If I mistake not, they disclose a system- 
atic connection of events, which, for harmony, inter- 



16 

est, and grandeur, will not readily be matched with a 
parallel, in the annals of nations. 

When America was approached by the Europeans, 
it was in the occupancy of the Indian tribes ; an un- 
happy race of beings, not able, as the event has 
proved, to stand before the advance of civilization ; — 
feeble, on the whole, compared with the colonists, 
when armed with the weapons and arts of Europe ; 
but yet capable of carrying on a most harassing and 
destructive warfare, for several generations ; particu- 
larly after having learned the use of fire-arms, and 
provided themselves with steel tomahawks and scalp- 
ing-knives, from the French and English colonists. 
Between the two latter, the continent was almost 
equally divided. From Nova Scotia to Florida, the 
English possessed the sea coast. From the St. Law- 
rence to the Mississippi, the French had established 
themselves in the interior. The Indian tribes, who 
occupied the whole line of the frontier, and the inter- 
mediate space between the settlements, were alter- 
nately stimulated, by the two parties against each 
other; but more extensively and effectively, along 
the greater part of the line, by the French against 
the English, than by the English against the French. 
With every war in Europe, between England and 
France, the frontier was in flames, from the Savannah 
to the St. Croix ; and down to so late a period did 
this state of things last, that I have noticed, within 
eighteen months, the death of an aged person, who 
was tomahawked by the Canadian savages, on their 
last incursion to the banks of the Connecticut river, 
as low down as Northampton. There were periods, 



16 

at which the expulsion of the English from the conti- 
nent seemed inevitable ; — and, at other times, the 
French empire in America appeared equally insecure. 
But it was plain, that no thought of independence 
could suggest itself, and no plan of throwing off the 
colonial joke could prosper, while a hostile power of 
French and Canadian savages, exasperated by the in- 
juries, inflicted and retaliated for a hundred years, 
was encamped along the frontier. On the contrary, 
the habit, so long kept up, of acting in concert with 
the mother country against their French and savage 
neighbors, was one of the strongest ties of interest, 
which bound the colonies to the crown. 

At length, in the year 1754, the conflicting claims of 
the two crowns to the jurisdiction of various portions 
of the Indian territory, belonging, perhaps, by no very 
good title to either of them, led to the commencement 
of hostilities between the English and the French, in 
different parts of the colonies. Among the measures 
of strength which were adopted against the common 
foe, was the plan of a union of the colonies into a 
general confederation, not dissimilar to that which 
was actually formed in the revolutionary war. It is 
justly remarked by the historians, as a curious coin- 
cidence of dates and events, that, on the fourth of 
July, 1754, General Washington, then a colonel in 
the provincial service, under Virginia, should have 
been compelled to capitulate to the French, at Fort 
Necessity, and that Benjamin Franklin, as one of the 
commissioners assembled at Albany, should have put 
his name, on the same day, to the abortive plan of 
the confederation ; and that, on the very same day^ 



17 

twenty-two years afterwards^ General Washington 
should be found at the head of the armies of In- 
dependent and United America, and Franklin in the 
Congress at Philadelphia, among the authors and 
signers of the Declaration. 

It is obvious, that the necessary elements of a 
Union could not subsist in a state of dependence on 
a foreign government ; and the failure of the confed- 
eration of 1754 is another proof, that our Union is 
but the form, in which our Independence was organ- 
ized. One in their origin, there is little doubt that 
they will continue so in their preservation. The 
most natural event of a secession of a small part of 
the Union from the other states, would be its re-colo- 
nization by Great-Britain. It was only the United 
States which were acknowledged to be independent 
by Great-Britain ; or declared to be independent by 
themselves. 

Two years after the period last mentioned, namely, 
in 1756, the flames of the war spread from America 
to Europe, where it burst forth and raged to an extent 
and with a violence, scarcely surpassed by the mighty 
contests of Napoleon. The empress of Austria and 
Frederic the Great, France and Spain, not yet hum- 
bled, and united by the family compact, in the 
closest alliance, and above all England, — then com- 
prehending within her dominions the Colonies, that 
now form the United States, — and at last roused and 
guided by the lordly genius and the lion heart of the 
Elder Pitt, plunged, with all their resources, into the 
conflict. There were various subsidiary objects at 
heart, with the different powers, but the great prize 
3 



18 

of the contest, between England and France,' was 
the possession of America. That prize, by the for- 
tune of war, or rather by that Providence, which, in 
this manner, was preparing the way for American In- 
dependence, was adjudged to the arms of England. 
The great work was accomplished, — the decisive 
blow was struck, — when Wolfe fell, in the arms of 
victory, on the heights of Abraham ; furnishing, in 
his fate, no unapt similitude of the British empire in 
America, which that victory had seemed to consum- 
mate. As Wolfe died in the moment of triumph, so 
the power of the British on this continent, received 
its death blow in the event that destroyed its rival. 

It is curious to remark, how instantly this effect 

began to develop itself. Up to this time, the utmost 

political energy of the colonies, in conjunction with 

that of the mother country, had been required to 

maintain a foothold on the continent. They were in 

constant apprehension of being swept away, by the 

united strength of the French and Indians. Their 

thoughts had never wandered beyond the frontier 

line, marked as it was, in its whole extent, with fire 

and blood. But the French power once expelled 

from the country, as it was, with a trifling exception 

at New-Orleans, and their long line of strong holds 

transferred to the British Government, the minds of 

men immediately moved forward, over the illimitable 

space, that seemed opening to them. A political 

miracle was wrought ; the mountains sunk, the val- 

lies rose, and the portals of the West were burst 

asunder. The native tribes of the forest still roamed 

the interior, but, in the imaginations of men, they de- 



19 

rived their chief terror from the alliance with the 
French. The idea did not immediately present itself 
to the minds of the Americans^ that they might, in 
like manner, be armed and stimulated by the English 
against the colonies, whenever a movement toward 
independence should require such a check. Hutchin- 
son remarks an altered tone, in the state papers of 
Massachusetts, from this period, which he ascribes 
less distinctly than he might, to the same cause. 
Governor Bernard, on occasion of the fall of Quebec, 
congratulates the General Court on " the blessings 
they derive from their subjeciion to Great-Britain ;" 
and the Council, in their echo to the speech, acknowl- 
edge, that it is "to their relation to Great-Britain, that 
they owe their freedom ;" and the same historian 
traces the rise of a vague idea of independency to 
the same period and the same influence upon the im- 
aginations of men, of the removal of the barrier of 
the French power. 

The subversion of this power required, or was 
thought to require, a new colonial system. Its prin- 
ciples were few and simple. An army was to be sta- 
tioned, and a revenue raised, in America. The army 
was to enforce the collection of the revenue ; the 
revenue was to pay the cost of the army ; and by this 
army, stationed in the colonies and paid by them, the 
colonies were to be kept down and the French kept 
out. The policy was ingenious and plausible ; it 
wanted but one thing for its successful operation ; 
but that want was fatal. It needed to be put to 
practice among men, who would submit to it. It 
would have done exceedingly well, in the new Cana- 



20 

dian conquests ; but it was wholly out of place among 
the descendants of the pilgrims and the puritans. Up 
to this hour, although the legislative supremacy of 
England had not been contested in general terms, yet 
the government at home had never attempted to enact 
laws-, simply for the collection of revenue. They 
had confined themselves to the indirect operation of 
the laws of trade, (which purported to be for the ad- 
vantage of all parts of tiie empire, the colonies as 
well as the mother country,) and those not rigidly en- 
forced. The reduction of the French possessions 
was the signal, not merely for the infusion of new 
vigor into the administration of the commercial sys- 
tem, but for the assertion of the naked right to tax 
America. 

When a great event is to be brought about, in the 
order of Providence, the first thing, which arrests the 
attention of the student of its history in after times, 
is the appearance of the fitting instruments for its ac- 
complishment. They <:ome forward and take their 
places on the great stage of action. They know not 
themselves, for what they are raised up. But there 
they are. James Otis was then in the prime of man- 
hood, about thirty-seven years of age. He was fully 
persuaded, that the measures adopted by the British 
government were unconstitutional, and he was armed 
with the genius, and learning, the wit, and eloquence ; 
the vehemence of temper, the loftiness of soul, the 
firmness of nerve, the purity of purpose, necessary to 
constitute a great popular leader in difficult times. 
The question was brought before a judicial tribunal, I 
must confess, in a small way, — on the petition of the 



21 

Custom House officers of Salem, for writs of assist- 
ance to enforce the acts of trade. Otis appeared, as 
the counsel of the commercial interest, to oppose the 
granting of these writs. Large fees were tendered 
him ; but his language was, " In such a cause, I des- 
pise all fees." His associate counsel, Mr. Thacher, 
preceded him in the argument of the cause, with 
moderation and suavity ; " but Otis," in the language 
of the elder President Adams, who heard him, " was 
a flame of fire. With a promptitude of classical 
allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of 
historical events and dates, a profusion of legal author- 
ities, a prophetic glance of his eye into futurity," 
(that glorious futurity, which he lived not, alas, to 
enjoy,) " and a deep torrent of impetuous eloquence, 
he carried all before him. American Independence 
was then and there born. Every man of an immense 
crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I 
did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance. 
Then and there was the first scene of the first act of 
opposition, to the arbitrary claims of Great-Britain."* 
It would be traveling over a beaten road, to pursue 
the narrative of the parliamentary contest, from this 
time to 1775. My object has merely been to point 
out the curious historical connection, between the 
consolidation and the downfall of the British empire 
in America, consequent upon the successful issue of 
the Seven Years' war. One consequence only may 
deserve to be specified, of a different character, but 
springing from the same source, and tending to the 
same end, and more decisive of the fate of the revo- 

* Tudor's Life of Otis, page 61. 



22 

lution, than any other merely political circumstance. 
The event, which wrested her colonial possessions, 
on this continent, from France, gave to our fathers a 
friend in that power, which had hitherto been their 
most dreaded enemy, and prepared France, — by the 
gradual operation of public sentiment and the influ- 
ence of reasons of State, — when the accepted time 
should arrive, to extend to them a helping hand, to 
aid them in establishing their independency. Next 
to a re-conquest of her own possessions, or rather 
vastly more efficacious toward humbling Great-Brit- 
ain, than a re-conquest of the colonies of France, 
was the great policy of enabling the whole British 
empire in America, alike the recent acquisitions and 
the ancient colonies along the coast, (for, to this length 
the policy of France extended,) to throw off the 
English yoke. France played, in this respect, on a 
much grander scale, that game of state, which gave 
Mr. Canning so much eclat, a few years since, in 
reference to the affairs of Spain. Perceiving Spain 
to be in the occupation of the French army, Mr. 
Canning, with a policy it must be owned more effec- 
tive as towards France, than friendly toward Spain, 
determined, as he said, to redress the balance of 
power in the Spanish colonies ; and, in order to render 
the acquisition of Spain comparatively worthless to 
France, to use his own language, " he called into 
being a new world in the west." Much more justly 
might the Count de Vergennes have boasted, that 
England, having wrested from France her American 
colonies, he had determined to redress the balance of 
power, in the quarter where it was disturbed ; to shut 



23 

up the victorious arms of England within their com- 
paratively unimportant new acquisitions, — to strike 
their ancient foothold from beneath their feet ; and 
call into being a new world in the west. On the 
score of generosity, the French minister had the ad- 
vantage, that his blow was one of retaliation, aimed 
at his enemy, while the British minister struck at a 
power with which he was at peace, through the sides 
of his ally. 

But all this wonderful conjunction of political 
causes, does not sufficiently explain, in a practical 
way, the phenomenon of the revolution, nor furnish a 
satisfactory account of the promptitude, with which 
the feeble colonies made the decisive appeal to arms, 
against the colossal power of England, — the boldness 
with which they plunged into the revolutionary strug- 
gle, — and the success with which, through a thousand 
vicissitudes, they conducted it to a happy close. 
Fully to comprehend this, we must again cast our 
eyes on the war of 1744, and still more on that of 
1756, as forming a great school of military conduct 
and discipline, in which the future leaders of the 
revolution were trained to the duties of the camp and 
the field. It was here, that they became familiarized 
to the idea of great military movements, and accus- 
tomed to the direction of great military expeditions, 
conceived, in the colonial councils, and often carried 
on, in the first instance, by the unaided colonial re- 
sources. 

In the extent of their military efforts, the numbers 
of men enlisted in the New- England colonies, — the 
boldness and comprehension of the campaigns, — the 



24 

variety and hardship of the service, and the brilliancy 
of the achievements, I could almost venture to say, 
that as much was effected in these two wars, as in 
that of the revolution. The military efforts of the 
colonies had, indeed, from the first, been remarkable. 
It was calculated, near the commencement of the last 
century, that every fifth man in Massachusetts, capa- 
ble of bearing arms, had been engaged in the service, 
at one time. The more melancholy calculation was, 
at the same time, made, that, in the period of thirty 
years from king Philip's war, from five to six thou- 
sand of the youth of the colony had perished in the 
wars. In the second year of the war of 1744, the 
famous expedition against Louisbourg was planned, 
by the Governor of Massachusetts, and sanctioned by 
its General Court. Three thousand two hundred of 
her citizens, with ten armed ships, sailed against that 
place. This force, compared with the population of 
Massachusetts at that time, was equal to an army of 
twelve thousand men, with our present numbers ; and 
the same immense force was kept up the following 
year. Louisbourg, by an auspicious coincidence, fell 
on the 17th of June, just thirty years before the bat- 
tle of Bunker-Hill. Colonel Gridley, who pointed 
the mortar, which, on the third trial, threw a shell 
into the citadel at Louisbourg, marked out the lines 
of the redoubt on Bunker-Hill ;* and old Colonel 
Frye, who hastened to join his regiment on Bunker- 
Hill, after the fight had begun, recalling the surren- 
der of Louisbourg, at which he had been present, 

* For this and some other facts in this address, I am indebted to Colonel Swett'a 
interesting and valuable history of the battle of Bunker-Hill. 



25 

thirty years before, declared that it was an auspicious 
day for America, and that he would take the risk of 
it. At the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, between the 
great powers of Europe, this poor little New-England 
conquest was all that Great-Britain had to give, for 
the restitution of all the conquests made by France, 
in the course of the war. 

But in the war of 1756, the military efforts of the 
colonies were still more surprising. If it is said, that 
they were upheld by the resources of the mother 
country, let it not be forgotten, in making the com- 
parison of their exertions in this war, with those in the 
revolution, that in the latter, they had the powerful 
support of France. The Seven Years' war was car- 
ried on in America, at the same time, in the extreme 
south, against the Cherokee Indians, then a formida- 
ble enemy, in the western part of Virginia and Penn- 
sylvania, at Niagara, on the whole frontier line, from 
Albany to the St. Lawrence and Quebec, in the 
extreme north-eastern corner of the country, where 
Nova Scotia and Cape Breton were retaken, in the 
West-Indies, and on the Spanish Main. The regi- 
ments of New-England and New- York, in this war, 
fought on lake Ontario, and lake George, at Quebec, 
in Nova-Scotia, in Martinico, Porto Bello, and at the 
Havannah. From the year 1754 to 1762, there were 
raised, by the single province of Massachusetts, thirty- 
five thousand men ; and for three years successively, 
seven thousand men, each year. This was in addi- 
tion to large numbers of the sea-faring inhabitants, 
who enlisted or were impressed into the British Navy ; 
and in addition to those, who enlisted in the regular 
4 



26 

British Army, who amounted in one year, to near a 
thousand. Napoleon, at the summit of his power, 
did not carry an equal number of the French people 
into the field. An army of seven thousand, compared 
with the population of Massachusetts, in the middle 
of the last century, is considerably greater, than an 
army of one million for France, in the time of Napo- 
leon. 

If I were to repeat the names of all the distin- 
guished pupils, in this great school of war, I should 
have to run over the list of a large proportion of the 
officers of the revolutionary army. Among them 
were Pescott, Putnam, Stark, Gridley, Pomroy, 
Gates, Montgomery, Mercer, Lee, and, above all, 
Washington. If I were to undertake to recount the 
heroic adventures, the incredible hardships, the priva- 
tions and exposures, that were endured in the frontier 
wilderness, in the warfare with the savage foe, — on \ 
the dreary scouting parties in mid-winter, — I should 
unfold a tale of human fortitude and human suffering, 
to which it would make the heart bleed to listen. I 
should speak of the gallant Colonel Williams, the 
founder of the important institution, which bears his 
name, in the western part of the Commonwealth, the 
accomplished, affable, and beloved commander, who 
fell at the head of his regiment, on the bloody eighth 
of September, 1755. Nor would I forget the faithful 
Mohawk chieftain, Hendrick, who fell at his side. 
I should speak of Putnam, tied to a tree by a party of 
savages, who had surprised him at the commencement 
of an action, in a subsequent campaign, and exposed, 
in this condition, to the fire of both parties ; after- 



27 

wards bound again to the stake, and the piles kindled 
which were to burn him alive, but, by the interfer- 
ence of an Indian warrior, rescued from this imminent 
peril, and preserved by Providence to be one of the 
thunderbolts of the revolution. I should speak of 
Gridley, — whom 1 have already mentioned, — the 
engineer at Louisbourg, the artillerist at Quebec, 
where his corps dragged up the only two field-pieces, 
which were raised to the heights of Abraham, in the 
momentous assault on that city, and who, as I have 
already said, planned the lines of the redoubt on 
Bunker-Hill, with consummate ability. I should 
speak of Pomroy, of Northampton, who, in the for- 
mer war, wrote to his wife from Louisbourg, that " if 
it were the will of God, he hoped to see her pleasant 
face again ; but if God, in his holy and sovereign 
Providence, has ordered it otherwise, he hoped to 
have a glorious meeting with her, in the kingdom of 
heaven, where there are no wars, nor fatiguing 
marches, nor roaring cannons, nor cracking bomb- 
shells, nor long campaigns, but an eternity to spend 
in perfect harmony and undisturbed peace ;"* and 
who did not only live to see his wife's pleasant face 
again, but to slay, with his own hands, in the year 
1755, the commander of the French army, the brave 
Baron Dieskau ; and who, on the 17th of June, 1775, 
dismounted and passed Charlestown Neck, on his 
way to Bunker-Hill, on foot, in the midst of a shower 
of balls, because he did not think it conscionable to 
ride General Ward's horse, which he had borrowed, 
through the cross fire of the British ships of war and 

* See the note at the end. 



28 

floating batteries. I should speak of Rogers, the 
New-Hampshire partizan, who, in one of the sharp 
conflicts in which his corps of Rangers was continually 
engaged, was shot through the wrist, and having had 
his queue cut off, by one of his men, to stop up the 
wound, went on with the fight. I should speak of 
the superhuman endurance and valor of Stark, a cap- 
tain in the same corps of Rangers, throughout the 
Seven Years' war, — a colonel at Bunker-Hill, — and 
who, by the victory at Bennington, which he planned 
and achieved, almost by the unaided resources of his 
own powerful mind and daring spirit, first turned the 
tide of disaster in the revolutionary war. I should 
speak of Frye, who was included as commander of 
the Massachusetts forces, in the disastrous capitula- 
tion of Fort William Henry, in 1757, and escaping, 
stripped and mangled, from the tomahawk of the 
savages, who fell upon them the moment they were 
marched out of the fort, wandered about the woods 
several days naked and starving, but who was one of 
the first to obey the summons, that ran through the 
country, on the 19th of April, 1775, and who called 
to mind the 17th of June, 1745, as he hastened to 
join his regiment on Bunker-Hill. I should speak of 
Lord Howe, the youthful, gallant, and favorite British 
general. On the eve of the fatal assault on Ticonde- 
roga, in 1758, he sent for Stark to sup with him, on 
his bear-skin, in his tent, and talk over the prospects 
of the ensuing day. He fell the next morning, at 
the head of his advancing column, equally lamented 
by Britons and Americans. The General Court of 
Massachusetts erected a monument to his memory, in 



29 

Westminster Abbey ; and Stark, who never spoke of 
him without emotion, used to rejoice, since he was 
to fall, that he fell before his distinguished talents 
could be employed against America. Above all, I 
should speak of Washington, the youthful Virginian 
colonel, as modest as brave, who seemed to bear a 
charmed life amidst the bullets of the French and 
Indians at Braddock's defeat, and w'ho was shielded, 
on that most bloody day, by the arm of Providence, 
to become the earthly savior of his country. 

Such were some of the incidents, wdiich connect 
the Seven Years' war with that of the Revolution. 
Such was the school in which, upon the then unex- 
plored banks of the Ohio, by the roaring waters of 
Niagara, and in the pathless wilderness of the North- 
Western frontier, the men of 1776 were trained, in 
the strictest school of British military discipline and 
conduct. And if there were wanted one instance 
more signal than all others of the infatuation, which, 
at that time, swayed the councils of Great-Britain, it 
would be the fact, that the British ministry not only 
attempted to impose their unconstitutional laws upon 
men, who had drawn in the whole great doctrine of 
English liberty, with their mothers' milk, but who, — 
a few years before, — had, for eight campaigns, stood 
side by side with the veterans of the British army ; 
who had marched beneath the wings of the British 
Eagle, and shared the prey of the British Lion, from 
Louisiana to Quebec. 

At length the Revolution, with all this grand civil 
and military preparation, came on ; and oh, that I 
could paint out, in worthy colors, the magnificent 



30 

picture ! Such a subject as it presents, considered as 
the winding up of a great drama, of which the open- 
ing scene begins with the landing of our fathers, is 
no where else, I firmly believe, to be found in the 
annals of man. It is a great national Epos of real 
life, — unsurpassed in grandeur and attraction. It 
comprehends every kind of interest ; politics of the 
most subtile and expansive schools ; great concerns 
of state and humanity, mingled up with personal 
intrigues ; the passions of ministers and the arts of 
cabinets, in strange contrast v/ith mighty develop- 
ments of Providence, which seem to take in the fate 
of the civilized world for ages. On the one hand, 
the great sanctuary of the British power, the adytum 
imperii, is heard, as Tacitus says of the sanctuary at 
Jerusalem, to resound with the valediction of the de- 
parting gods. On the other hand, the fair temple of 
American Independence is seen rising, like an exha- 
lation from the soil. 

Not in the sunshine and the smile of heaven, 
But wrapt in whirlwinds, and begirt with woes. 

The incidents, the characters are worthy of the drama. 
What names, what men ! Chatham, Burke, Fox, 
Franklin, the Adamses, Washington, Jefferson, and 
all the chivalry and all the diplomacy of Europe and 
America. The voice of generous disaffection sounds 
beneath the arches of St. Stephens ; and the hall of 
Congress rings with an eloquence, like that, which 

Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece, 
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne. 

Then contemplate the romantic groups that crowd 
the military scene ; all the races of men, and all the 



31 

degrees of civilization, brought, upon the stage at 
once. The English veteran, the plaided Highlander, 
the hireling peasantry of Hesse Cassel and Anspach, 
the gallant chevaliers of Poland, the legions of France, 
the hardy American yeoman, his leather apron not 
always thrown aside, the mountain riflemen, the 
painted savage. At one moment, we hear the mighty 
armadas of Europe thundering in the Antilles. Anon <^ 

we behold the blue-eyed Brunswickers, whose banners 
told, in their tattered sheets, of the victory of Min- 
den, threading the wilderness between the St. Law- 
rence and Albany, under an accomplished British 
gentleman, and capitulating to the American forces, 
commanded by a naturalized Virginian, who had been 
present at the capture of Martinico, and was shot 
through the body at Braddock's defeat. While the 
grand drama is closed at Yorktown, with the storm of 
the British lines, by the emulous columns of the 
French and American army, the Americans led by the 
gallant scion of the oldest French noblesse, the heroic 
Lafayette ; a young New- York lawyer, the gallant 
and lamented Hamilton, commanding the advanced 
guard.* 

Nor let us turn from the picture, without shedding 
a tear over the ashes of the devoted men, who laid 
down their lives in the cause, from Ijcxington and 
Concord to the farthest sands of the South. Warren 
was the first conspicuous victim. If ever a man 
went to an anticipated and certain death, in obedience 
to the call of duty, he was that man. Though he 

* Some of the ideas in tliis paragraph are contained in an article by the author, published 
in a periodical work, some years since. 



32 

had no military education, he knew, from the first, 
that to hold Bunker-Hill, in the state of the Ameri- 
can army, was impracticable. He was against forti- 
fying it, but overruled in that, he resolved to assist in 
its defence. His associate, in the provincial Con- 
gress, Mr. Gerry, besought him not to risk his life, 
for that its loss was inevitable. Warren thought it 
might be so, but replied. — that he dwelt within the 
sound of the cannon, and that he should die beneath 
his roof, if he remained at home, while his country- 
men were shedding their blood for him. Mr. Gerry 
repeated, that if he went to the hill, he would surely 
be killed ; and Warren's rejoinder was, — " Dulce et 
decorum est pro patria moriJ^ Montgomery moved 
to the assault of Quebec in the depth of a Canadian 
winter, at the end of December, under a violent 
snow-storm. One gun only was fired from the bat- 
teries, but that proved fatal to the gallant commander 
and his aids, who fell, where he had fought by the 
side of Wolfe, sixteen years before. Mercer passed 
through the Seven Years' war with Washington. On 
one occasion, in that war, he wandered through the 
wilderness, wounded and faint with the loss of blood, 
for one hundred miles, subsisting on a rattle-snake, 
which he killed by the way. He was pierced 
seven times through the body, with a bayonet, at 
Princeton. Scammel, severely wounded at Saratoga, 
fell on the eve of the glorious success at Yorktown ; 
and Laurens, the youthful prodigy of valor and con- 
duct, the last lamented victim of the war, paid the 
forfeit of his brilliant prospects, after those of the 
country were secured. 



33 

These were all men, who have gained a separate 
renown ; who have secured a place for their names, 
in the annals of liberty. But let us not, while we 
pay a well-deserved tribute to their memory, forget 
the thousand gallant hearts, which poured out their 
life-blood in the undistinguished ranks ; who followed 
the call of duty up to the cannon's mouth ; who could 
not promise themselves the meed of fame, and Heaven 
knows, could have been prompted by no hope of 
money ; the thousands, who pined in loathsome 
prison-ships, or languished with the diseases of the 
camp ; and, returning from their country's service, 
with broken fortunes and ruined constitutions, sunk 
into an early grave. 

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, 
With all their country's wislies blest. 
When spring, with dewy fingers cold. 
Returns to deck their hallowed mould, 
She there shall dress a sweeter sod, 
Than fancy's feet have ever trod. 
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, 
To bless the turf, that wraps their clay ; — 
And Freedom shall awhile repair, 
To dwell a weeping hermit, there. 

Still less let us forget, on this auspicious anniver- 
sary, the venerable survivors of the eventful contest. 
Let us rejoice, that so many of them are spared to 
enjoy the fruits of their efforts and sacrifices. Let 
us behold, in their gray locks and honorable scars, the 
strongest incentives to the discharge of every duty of 
the citizen and patriot ; and, above all, let us listen 
to the strong appeal, which the whole army of the 
Revolution makes to us, through these its aged sur- 
viving members, to show our gratitude to those who 
5 



34 

fell, by smoothing the pathway to the grave of those, 
whom years and the early hardships of the service, 
yet spare for a short time among us. 

But it is time to turn from all these mingled con- 
templations, to the practical lesson, which it becomes 
us to draw from our reflections, on this great subject. 

Momentous as the revolution was in its origin and 
causes, its incidents and characters, it derives a still 
greater interest from its results. 

Fifty years have elapsed, since the termination of 
the war, and in that half-century, we have been reap- 
ing fruits of the precious seed then sown, — most 
costly and peculiar. One general constitution of fed- 
eral government has been framed ; and connected 
with it, in most harmonious relation, twenty-four 
constitutions of government for the separate States. 
These, in their respective spheres, operating each to 
its assigned end, — have secured us in all the blessings 
of political independence and well-regulated liberty. 
The industry of the country has been protected and 
fostered, and carried to a wonderful point of skill, — 
the rights of the country have been triumphantly 
vindicated in a second war, — its boundaries pushed 
into the remote wilderness, — its population increased 
five-fold, and its wealth augmented in still greater 
ratio, — avenues of communication, by land and by 
water, stretched across the plains and over the moun- 
tains, in every direction, — the most astonishing im- 
provements made in all the arts of life, — and literature 
and science not less successfully cultivated. 

Did time permit me to descend to particulars, I 
could point out five or six principles or institutions, 



35 

each of the highest importance in civil society ; for 
some of which the best blood of Europe has, from 
time to time been shed, and mighty revolutions have 
been attempted in vain ; and which have grown up, 
silently, and unconsciously, in this country, in the 
space of fifty years. I can but run over the names of 
the reforms, which, in this connection, have been 
achieved or are in progress. The feudal accumulation 
of property in a few hands has been guarded against, 
and liberty has been founded on its only sure basis, 
equality ; and with this all-important change, a multi- 
tude of minor reforms have been introduced into our 
system of law. The great question of the proper 
mode of disposing of crime has been solved, by the 
establishment of a penitentiary system, which com- 
bines the ends of penal justice with the interests of 
humanity ; divests imprisonment of its ancient cruel- 
ties, without making it cease to be an object of 
terror ; — affords the best chance for the reform of the 
convict, and imposes little or no burden on the state. 
A like success seems to be promised, in reference to 
the other great evil of pauperism, a burden of intol- 
erable weight in every other country. Experiments 
have pretty satisfactorily shown, that, by a judicious 
system carefully administered, pauperism may be 
made to cease to be a school for crime, and to a con- 
siderable degree, also, cease to be a burden to the 
public. A plan of popular education has been intro- 
duced, by which the elements of useful knowledge 
have been carried to every door. Political equality 
has been established, on the broadest footing, with 
no other evils, than those which are inseparable from 



36 

humanity, — evils infinitely less than those of despotic 
government. In fine, freedom of conscience has been 
carried to the highest point of practical enjoyment, 
w^ithout producing any diminution of the public re- 
spect due to the offices of religion. 

These, I take to be the real substantial fruits of 
our free institutions of government. They are mat- 
ters each of the highest moment. Their importance 
would well occupy each a separate essay. Time 
only has been left me to indicate them. 

With these results of our happily organized liberty, 
we are starting, Fellow-citizens, on the second half 
century, since the close of the revolutionary war. 
Let us hope that we are to move, with a still acceler- 
ated pace, on the path of improvement and happiness, 
of public and private virtue and honor. When we 
compare what our beloved country now is, — or to go 
no farther than our own state, — when we compare 
what Massachusetts now is, with what it was fifty 
years ago, what grounds for honest pride and bound- 
less gratitude does not the comparison suggest ? And 
if we wished to find an example of a community, as 
favored as any on earth, with a salubrious climate ; — 
a soil possessed of precisely that degree of fertility, 
which is most likely to create a thrifty husbandry ; — 
advantages for all the great branches of industry, com- 
merce, agriculture, the fisheries, manufactures, and 
the mechanic arts ; — free institutions of government ; — 
establishments for education, charity, and moral im- 
provement ; a sound public sentiment, — a widely dif- 
fused love of order, — a glorious tradition of ancestral 
renown, — a pervading moral sense, — and an hered- 



3? 

itary respect for religion ; if we wished to find a land 
where a man could desire to live, to educate and 
establish his children, to grow old and to die, — where 
could we look, where need we wander, beyond the 
limits of our own ancient and venerable state ? 

Fellow-Citizens of Worcester, — words, after all, 
are vain. Do you wish to learn how much you are 
indebted to those, who laid the foundation of these 
your social blessings, do not listen to me, but look 
around you ; survey the face of the country, of the 
immediate neighborhood in which you live. Go up 
to the rising grounds, that overlook this most beauti- 
ful village ; contemplate the scene of activity, pros- 
perity, and thrift spread out before you. Pause on 
the feelings of satisfaction, with which you dismiss 
your children in the morning to school, or receive 
them home at evening ; the assured tranquility, with 
which you lie down to repose at night, half of you, 
I doubt not, with unbolted doors, beneath the over- 
shadowing pinions of the public peace. Dwell upon 
the sacred calm of the Sabbath morn, when the repose 
of man and of nature is awakened by no sound, but 
that of the village bell, calling you to go up and wor- 
ship God, according to the dictates of your conscience ; 
and reflect that all these blessings were purchased for 
you, by your high-souled fathers, at the cost of years 
of labor, trial, and hardship ; of banishment from 
their native land, of persecution and bloodshed, of 
tyranny and war. Think, then, of Greece and of 
Poland ; of Italy and Spain ; aye, of France and of 
England ; of any, and of every country, but your 



38 

own ; and you will know the weight of obligation, 
you owe your fathers ; and the reasons of gratitude, 
which should prompt you to celebrate the Fourth of 
July. 



NOTE. 

I have thought that the reader, who is curious in the earlier 
history of our country, would be gratified with the whole of the 
letter of General Pomroy, of which a characteristic sentence is 
quoted in the text. It has never been printed, and is here sub- 
joined from a copy furnished me, by my much valued friend, Mr. 
George Bancroft, of Northampton. 

From ye Grand Battre 5 mile & haf North From ye City Louisbourg. 

May ye 8, 1745. 
My dear Wife, Altho ye many Dangers & hazards I have been in since 
I left you, yet I have been through ye goodness of God Preserved, Iho 
much worried with ye grate business I have upon my hands. But I go 
cherefully on v.-ith it. I have much to write. But little time Shall only 
give some hints Tuesday ye Last day of April, ye fleet landed on ye 
Island of Cape Breton about 5 miles from Louisbourg. ye French saw our 
vessels and came out with a company to prevent our landing But as Fast 
as ye boats could git on shore ye men were landed. A warm ingagement 
with them : They sone retreated, we followed them, & drove them into ye 
woods but few of them able to git into ye city yt day 4 we killed yt 
were found many taken we lost not one man : We have taken & killed 
since many more, ye number I do not know, but not less than eighty 
parsons what is since killed. The grand Battre is ours : but before we 
entered it the people were fled out of it, and gon over to ye town But had 

stopt up ye Tutchhols of ye cannon General Peppril gave me ye Charge 

& oversight of above twenty smiths in boaring of them out : Cannon boals 
& Bourns hundred of them were fired at us from ye city &. ye Island Fort. 
Grate numbers of Them struck ye Fort : Some in ye parade among ye Peo- 
ple But none of them hurt & as sone as we could git ye cannon clear we 
gave them Fire for Fire & Bombarded them on ye west side. Louisbourg 
an exceeding strong handsom & well sittiated place with a fine barber it 
seams impregnable. But we have ben so succeeded heitherto yt I do not 
doubt But Providence will Deliver it into our hands. 

Sunday What we have lost of our men I do not certinly know, But 
May ye I fear near 20 men ye army in general have been in health : 
12 from It looks as if our campane would last long But I am willing 
this to stay till God's time comes to deliver ye Citty Louisbourg 

below into our hands, which do not dcubt but will in good time be 

writ done : we have shut them up on every side and still are mak- 

ing our works stronger against them. 42 pound shot they have fired in 
upon them every day ; one very large mortar we have with which w« play 



40 

upon them upon there houses often braks among them : there houses are 
compact, which ye bourns must do a grate deal of hirt & distress them in a 
grate degree Small mortars we have with which we fire in upon them. 
I have had my health since I landed. 

My dear wife I expect to be longer gon from home then I did when I 
left it : but I desire not to think of returning Till Louisbourg is taken : & 
I hope God will inable you to submit quietlj' to his will whatever it may be; 
& inable you with courage «& good conduct to go through ye grate busi- 
ness yt is now upon your hands & not think your time ill spent in teaching 
& governing your family according to ye word of God. 

My company in general are well : Some few of them are 111, But hope 
none dangerous. 

The affairs at home I can order nothing But must wholly leave Hoping 
yt they will be well ordered & taken care of: My kind love to Mr. Sweet- 
land my duty to Mother Hunt &, love to Brothers and sisters all 

My Dear wife If it be the will of God I hope to see your pleasant face 
again : But if God in his Holy <fe Sovereign Providence has ordered it 
others wise, I hope to have a glorious meeting with you in ye Kingdom of 
heaven where there is no wars nor Fatiguing marches, no roaring cannon 
nor cracking Boum shells, nor Long Campains ; But an Eternity to spend 
in Perfect harmony and undisturbed peace. 

This is ye hartty Desire & Prayer 

of him yt is your Loving 

Husband SETH POMROY 
To Mks Mary Pomroy at Northampton In New England. 



^ / 






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ADDRESS 



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BEFORE THE 



CITIZENS OF WORCESTER 



BY EDWARD EVERETT. 



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